Nine Days: A Mystery Read online

Mike made a face that told me I’d accidentally hit pay dirt, and I went a little giddy. “Is it something to do with Milestone Properties?” Mike twitched, and I grinned. “Son of a bitch. What is it?”

  Mike hesitated, then got out his phone. He messed with it for a second, then held it up. Voices started coming out of it.

  “You’re gonna what?” one of them said. It sounded a lot like Jesse Reed. The background noise made it clear that he was in the bar.

  “The holdouts will be begging Milestone to buy, when I’m through with them,” Richard’s nasal twang answered. “They won’t be able to get out of town fast enough.”

  “Richard,” Jesse sighed, “it’s a really stupid idea. Those guys are gonna ask questions, and that’s four people with information that could fry us. It’s too dangerous.”

  “I’m not going to tell them anything—,” Richard began, but Jesse cut him off.

  “You think you can just wave a couple of bucks in front of some local mouth-breathers and they’ll just do whatever you tell them, without saying anything to anybody else? Please. Just be the political guy and leave the crunchy stuff to me, will you?”

  The recording stopped. Mike lowered the phone and put it back in his pocket.

  I said, “I don’t know the exact location, but Richard’s being held at a compound just across the county line west of here, probably by whoever he was talking about there.”

  Mike had turned and was heading for his Jeep. I caught up and got into the passenger seat as he started the motor. “You’ll need money.”

  IV

  I explained the ransom situation as we headed toward the square. Mike stopped at the bank and returned to the Jeep with a zippered bag after about twenty minutes.

  “Sorry about the wait,” he said, tossing it into my lap.

  I looked inside. There were twenty bricks of new Cs—a hundred thousand dollars. “Jesus Christ. Did you rob the place?”

  “I’m a cosigner on Tova’s account,” he said. I gave him a look, and he tilted his head away from me. “It’s for Hector. She’ll get it.”

  He aimed the Jeep west, and after a couple of miles we were slingshotting along the winding two-lane strip of asphalt like we were too young to die and too old to care. He seemed to know where he was going.

  I sat back, trying to ignore the ride, and said, “What was that language you guys were speaking last night?”

  “Some local dialect that Hector used back home,” Mike said. “He taught it to me and Teresa while he learned to speak English. Came in handy when we didn’t want teachers or any of the other kids to know what we were saying to one another.”

  “Probably came in handy for dodging the feds as well,” I said as a prologue to grilling him about it, but a flash of red and blue had caught my eye. We were cresting a low rise, and a Confederate flag fluttered from a galvanized pole fronting a group of mobile homes in the wash down below.

  “Is that it?” I asked Mike, grabbing his arm. He nodded and pulled to a stop on the shoulder.

  There was one large trailer facing the loop at the end of a gravel drive, with four smaller ones farther back. A new red pickup was parked alongside this main trailer, and a couple of late-model cars near one of the smaller ones.

  “You’ll have to go in without me,” I said, swallowing the boulder at the back of my throat.

  Mike put the Jeep back in gear. “Hon, people around here fly that flag like it’s a Six Flags banner. They don’t got no more idea of what it means than my dog does. These jokers aren’t the guys who are after you.”

  I tried to reply before survival mode kicked in, but my limbs were already going cold and nerveless. I checked the Kahr in my front pocket, to make sure that the safety was off and a round was in the chamber as we rolled up the driveway.

  Mike stopped at the chain-link gate and got out. I stayed where I was. A man came out onto the wood stoop that had been built up to the main trailer’s door.

  “What you want?” he called over, not friendly.

  He was youngish, maybe thirty, with stringy blond hair hanging out the back of his ball cap. He had on a Western-style plaid shirt and creased, starched Wranglers, with a huge silver rodeo buckle belt. His boots were sharp-toed ostrich hide, dyed red.

  “Got a proposition for you,” Mike said.

  The man came down the wood steps and over to the chain-link fence, squinting. “Now, what’d you say?” he asked, drawing a pack of cigarettes from the snap pocket on his shirt.

  “I’d like to buy Hallstedt out,” Mike said steadily. He didn’t fidget, just said his piece, nice and plain.

  The man lit a cigarette, took a deep draw, and blew the smoke over to one side with a contemptuous air. “You gonna have to speak up, man. I don’t hear too good.”

  Mike strode to the Jeep and got one of the bricks from the zipper bag, which was shoved down tight between the front seats. He went back over to the fence, holding the cash at shoulder level. I could see Blondie’s eyes glitter from where I was sitting.

  “Owes us a lot more than that, brother.”

  “How much?” Mike asked.

  Blondie glanced toward me, then walked over to the gate and started working on the padlock. “Y’all better talk to Gene.”

  Mike got back in the Jeep and we drove through the gate. Blondie pointed us toward the trailer at the very back, a battered red box with a rickety shed porch across the front. A man was sitting there in a plastic folding chair. He had a summer hat on, straw, with a ventilation band around the crown. Below it, his hound dog face moved in a slow chewing motion. He had a round, low paunch in his lap, and stringy legs propped wide in front of him. A shotgun leaned against the trailer on his left side, between him and the door. He took hold of it leisurely as we drove up, and laid it across his knees. Blondie ambled up behind the Jeep and came around on my side as Mike turned off the motor.

  “These folks say they wanna buy our boy.”

  “That a fact,” said Gene, looking us over.

  Mike had remained in the driver’s seat and was leaning forward slightly, his wrists stacked on top of the wheel. He didn’t say anything, just waited.

  Gene chewed for a second, then said, “He ain’t fit for much.”

  “That’s all right,” Mike replied, “we don’t need him for much.”

  Gene stood up and came to the top of the porch steps. His belly looked like a basketball shoved up under his shirt. “Who’s your friend?”

  “Just along for the ride,” Mike said.

  Gene nodded with a sneer. “She looks kinda proud of herself.”

  I can’t help the way my face is put together. I let my eyes drop toward the floor of the Jeep, hoping it made me look demure. I doubted it.

  “You oughta teach her to look at a man when he’s talking,” Gene said, his voice growing louder.

  Mike waved at him. “She knows. She’s just nervous. You know how women are.”

  “Seems to me she needs a little tap,” Gene told him, his jowly face spreading into an ugly grin. “Just a little tap, to remind her.”

  Mike made an impatient gesture. “We gonna sit out here in the heat all day, talking bullshit?”

  “Half a million,” Gene said.

  Mike snorted. “Get real, man. That sorry sack ain’t worth nothing like that.”

  “You know he let a wetback fuck his wife? Just let him do it, make a pussy bitch out of him, in front of God and everybody.”

  Mike shook his head in mock opprobrium, and Gene made a satisfied noise in the back of his stringy throat. “Come on up here, brother,” he said to Mike.

  He was holding the shotgun horizontal across his midsection, one hand supporting the barrel, the other looped loosely under the stock. Mike didn’t look at me, but took his hand off the keys in the ignition with a deliberate air, and climbed down out of the Jeep. He walked over to the steps and up.

  “You, too, sister girl,” Gene said. “Be good for you to see what happens to a man with no self-respect.”


  Blondie was immediately to my right. Hoping he wouldn’t notice the bulge of my jeans pocket under my shirt, I got out and climbed up, staying one step below Gene. He struck me as the kind of man who wouldn’t like a woman at eye level, and I didn’t want to get much closer to that shotgun. He backed up and turned, going over to the trailer door. He swung it open and gestured us in.

  Trailers always smell wrong to me, and this one was worse than most. Rotting garbage and urine with a top note of stale cigarette smoke. The floor had an orange and brown shag carpet, and the walls were covered with fake wood paneling. A folding table stood under one of the aluminum windows along the back wall, and what was left of Richard Hallstedt was propped in one of the plastic chairs next to it.

  His nicely pressed khaki pants were now soiled and torn, and he reeked of excrement. Both eyes were swollen shut, his mouth a bloody maw with teeth floating in it. The nose was definitely broken. He was shoeless and nude to the waist, bruises and cuts covering his narrow torso. One large gash near his right armpit appeared to be infected, red and swollen with pus. Gene gazed at him with amused pride, cradling the shotgun. I had to clench my teeth to keep from saying what I thought of him.

  Mike’s face was impassive as he stood looking around the trailer, seemingly bored by the specter at the table. “Stinks in here,” he said. “Y’all should clean the place once in a while.”

  Richard’s head moved at the sound of Mike’s voice, and an indecipherable gurgle came from the vicinity of what had once been his mouth. Gene said mildly, “Shut it, boy,” and Richard stiffened, going silent.

  “All right, let’s just cut to the chase,” Mike said with a sigh. “I don’t have half a million dollars. I’ve got fifty thousand. I know he don’t owe you more than that.”

  “You do, do you?” Gene was still chewing a nameless something, his jowls swaying gently with the movement. “You can have his carcass for fifty.” He pumped the shotgun and raised it in Richard’s direction. My gut clenched.

  Mike gave the appearance of considering it for an instant, then shook his head. “I need him alive, at least for a little while.”

  Gene hitched the shotgun in Mike’s direction. “Then the price is half a million.”

  Mike looked at me and shrugged. “Guess we’ll be going, then.”

  Richard cried out at that, and Gene turned toward him again, shouting, “Shut up, I said!”

  Before he could come back around, Mike had hurled himself at the shotgun. He hit it in the middle, pushing it against Gene’s skinny chest, and both men went over backward, Gene howling, “Floyd!”

  Mike rolled to the side, keeping hold of the gun’s barrel, twisting it away, and brought the butt down on Gene’s face. It made a sound like ice cubes breaking out of the tray.

  I felt a quick slap at my hip and noticed that the Kahr was now in my hand. Boots sounded on the porch, and as Mike lurched to his feet, I swung toward the door. Blondie was standing there, his right hand rising. I didn’t wait to see what he had in it. I gave him all seven: two in the face, five in the chest.

  I didn’t hear the shots; I didn’t hear anything. I was high up, away, somewhere else, only dimly aware of Mike moving over to the table to drag Richard from the chair. They stumbled out and around Blondie and down the steps toward the Jeep. I floated behind like a disembodied spirit, my eyes sliding across the man lying on the porch without seeing him.

  Mike shoved Richard into the backseat and swung behind the wheel. As we ran the gauntlet out, a figure materialized from a shaded corner, a .38 braced in both hands. I heard a round ping across the hood, and the report of several others, all wide. We got through the gate without losing anybody, and Mike stood on the gas.

  My right hand was burning; I flexed and shook it and heard something heavy thunk onto the Jeep’s floor.

  “You think he needs the hospital?” I heard Mike say, very faintly.

  My head floated around toward him, and a voice I didn’t recognize said, “Who?”

  Mike’s hand swam toward me; as it landed on my shoulder, I felt myself fall and jerked, bracing for impact.

  “You all right?” Mike said, peering hard at me while trying to watch the road at the same time. His voice sounded normal now. I didn’t feel floaty anymore.

  I twisted my head to look at Richard, curled up on the backseat. He was breathing noisily, eyes closed.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  Mike fumbled in his far side pocket and passed me his phone, reciting a number. “Doc Harman. Tell her to meet us at Richard’s house.”

  V

  The front door opened as we pulled up under Richard’s porte cochere, and Marie Hooks stepped out onto the stoop.

  “Oh my gawd, what happened?” she cried as Mike helped Richard around the Jeep. She pulled the door open wide and said, “To the left.”

  We passed through a big archway at the end of a foyer that was lined in something that was supposed to look like marble but didn’t. Beyond this was a sunken living area about the size of Dodger Stadium, littered with overpriced furniture. Marie led us into a bedroom almost as big, with a king-size bed dressed in frilly shams and a designer duvet.

  “What happened?” Marie asked again as Mike eased Richard onto the bed.

  “Doc Harman’s on the way,” Mike told her. “Keep an eye out, will you?”

  Marie flicked an unfriendly look in my direction and disappeared. Mike got Richard stretched out on the bed, propping him up with a couple of the effeminate pillows. Richard lay with his head back, breathing raspily through the ruins of his mouth.

  I was still feeling slightly supernatural, and stood there mutely as Mike leaned forward and said quietly, “Hey, Richard? Can you hear me?”

  Richard made a series of noises that sounded affirmative. Mike got out his phone. As the recording played, Richard began to roll his head from side to side on the pillow.

  “You keep quiet about Hector, and nobody else’ll hear this,” Mike told him.

  Richard’s head stopped moving, and his eyes flashed through the swollen lids. He performed a painful nod, going still.

  Voices exploded in the foyer, and the doctor bustled in. She stopped at the foot of the bed to gape at Richard before setting her bag on the floor and getting out a stethoscope. She examined him, then turned cold eyes on me and Mike and said, “What happened?”

  “Some local heroes have been using him as a speed bag for a couple of days,” Mike said.

  “Why?”

  Mike shrugged. The doctor’s look shifted to me. “I’ll have to report this to the sheriff.”

  “Whatever you gotta do, Doc,” Mike said, his voice amiable. He got out his keys and put a hand on Richard’s shoulder. “I’ll be back later to look in on you, man.”

  There was something oddly merry in Richard’s pained nod, as if he were accepting a challenge he relished. It put a bad taste in my mouth.

  “Listen,” I murmured to Mike as we headed out, “maybe this gets Richard off Hector’s back, but what about Maines?”

  “They’re a package deal,” he said.

  I wanted to ask how sure he was of that, but Marie was waiting in the foyer and had surged toward us as soon as we cleared the bedroom door. “Is he going to be OK?”

  “Depends on your definition of ‘OK,’” Mike said.

  She gave him an annoyed frown and flounced officiously to the front door. Her concern was ostensibly natural, but something about it was making my radar tweak. I stopped on the doorstep and asked her, “Do you live in?”

  “The household arrangements are none of your business,” she informed me.

  “I’m just wondering why there was nobody here when the cops brought Richard home on Thursday night.”

  Her severe look grew distinctly hostile. “I have a personal life.”

  “Where were you?”

  She pressed her lips together, shoving at us until we’d cleared the threshold, and then slammed the door behind us.

  “What w
as that all about?” Mike said as we got into the Jeep.

  “She’s got a drinking problem, doesn’t she?” I asked him.

  “Understatement of the century,” he scoffed.

  “Did she know Teresa?”

  “Yeah, she used to work for them. Teresa let her go after Richard moved out, and Tova hired her on at the hotel, but she was such a mess that Tova gave up on her after a couple of weeks. I think Richard hired her back just because he felt sorry for her.”

  “Does she run errands for him?”

  Mike snickered. “I doubt it. She can barely tie her own shoes.”

  So why had she been coming down Teresa’s driveway in Richard’s Lexus on Wednesday night? OK, I wasn’t positive it had been Richard’s Lexus, and I hadn’t paid enough attention to the driver to be sure it was Marie, but I kept thinking about that patch of green minty stuff on the box in the basement that smelled suspiciously like peppermint schnapps, and Connie’s remark about her not having a driver’s license. If she’d waited for Richard to fall asleep and then come over to Teresa’s to retrieve an old basement stash, she’d have seen the malquis.

  The brain didn’t care much for the idea that the Amazon had been killed over something as banal as firing her maid, but the bizarre circumstances of her death felt less bizarre when I looked at them through beer goggles. I knew from personal experience how hugely out of proportion a slight could grow in the alcoholic mind, and the illogical lengths to which the same mind might go for revenge.

  “He’ll need some time to consider his situation,” Mike said as we pulled away from Richard’s house. “Tomorrow I’ll make sure he knows that part of the deal is him getting Maines off Hector.”

  “What if Maines won’t do it?”

  “He’ll do it,” Mike assured me.

  “OK, but what if he won’t?” I insisted.

  “Then this goes to the D.A.,” he said, patting his pocket, “and Richard and Jesse go to jail.”

  “So does Hector, unless you’ve got them copping to Teresa’s murder on there somewhere,” I pointed out. Mike didn’t say anything, and I asked, “What do the feds want him for?”

  “It’s something to do with his family, back home.”